Radiation Induced Corrosion of Copper in Deep Geological Repositories - 19493

This paper presents an overview of the Cu corrosion research being conducted by the Radiation Assisted Materials Performance Science (RAMPS) group at Western University, in collaboration with the Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) and Canada Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). This paper presents an overview of our research in three areas to develop a high-fidelity copper corrosion model. Copper is an important candidate material for corrosion protection of used nuclear fuel containers (UFC). The UFC and its environment will be exposed to a continuous flux of γ-radiation. The three areas are chemical kinetics of γ-radiolysis of humid air and groundwater, the effects of solution parameters on Cu corrosion dynamics without γ-radiation and the effects of γ-radiation on Cu corrosion dynamics. These studies show that because of the strong feedback loops between processes occurring during copper corrosion, the overall corrosion mechanism may not follow linear dynamics. Presented here are our key findings, their implications for corrosion science in general, and the potential implications of these results for predictions of the adequacy of a UFC copper corrosion allowance. (authors)